1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus, a print control system, a print control method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is an image forming apparatus on which clear toner that is colorless toner containing no color material and color toners of four colors of CMYK are mounted. A toner image formed with the clear toner is fixed onto paper on which an image has been formed with the color toners, so that visual-tactual effects (referred to as glossy effects) are realized on a surface of the paper. A glossy effect to be realized varies depending on a toner image formed with the clear toner and a fixing manner thereof. For example, there is a glossy effect of giving gloss as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-217083. There is also a glossy effect of suppressing gloss on the contrary. Furthermore, there is also a glossy effect that can be realized by performing a post-processing by special post-processors such as a glosser and a low-temperature fixing unit in addition to fixing control.
Note that when a user selects a type of paper, a user expects a glossy effect that the paper has (for example, matte effect if matte paper is selected) on the entire paper. However, there is the problem in that color toner reduces a glossy effect of the paper on a region to which the color toner adheres (hereinafter, referred to as a color toner region). The conventional technique does not take the glossy effect of paper itself into consideration at all and thus fails to solve this problem.
Therefore, there is a need for a print control apparatus, a print control system, a print control method, and a computer program product that make it possible to make a glossy effect on a region to which color toner adheres equivalent to a glossy effect of paper itself.